Since the founding of the Global Partnership for Effective Development Co-operation (GPEDC), the Global Partnership Initiatives (GPIs) were recognised as vital components and constituencies that support the implementation of GPEDC commitments on effective and sustainable development. GPIs were invented as voluntary initiatives which directly implement internationally-agreed development effectiveness principles: country ownership, a focus on results, inclusive partnerships and transparency and mutual accountability.

These regional platforms were instrumental in garnering political buy-in from countries into the program. Working with such regional multi-stakeholders is critical in implementing GPEDC principles and commitments. It avoids duplication of efforts and resources, allows knowledge sharing across countries, minimizes fragmentation, promotes ownership and ensures sustainability.

The key to implementing GPEDC principles is to allow partner countries to play their unique roles in driving the principles forward locally.

In the pilot, Asia-Pacific countries, supported by AP-DEF, focused on their implementation of UNDP’s Development Finance Assessment (DFAs) by collaborating with a wider range of stakeholders around financing strategies in the context of a changing financing landscape. The NEPAD Agency helped co-ordinate country exchanges, strengthening co-operation with development partners and participating African countries. Global development co-operation commitments must be translated to fit specific national contexts; and partner countries are the ones who can make GPEDC principles relevant for each country.

GPI-R&MA played a critical role in working with the regional platforms to lead the dialogues within and among the pilot countries. Through dialogue, not only did participating countries exchange knowledge and experience, but each region also developed a set of recommendations aligning governments, private sectors, civil society and development partners with the country results framework. The outcome of this inter-regional dialogue generated key political messages that were used as one of the inputs to produce the Nairobi Outcome of Document during the Second High Level Meeting (HLM2) in 2016.

Inter-regional meeting at the Latin America and Caribbean GPI-R&MA Chapter meeting in April 2017 in Panama City, Panama.

The fundamental vision of the GPI-R&MA was to form a round of dialogue around the key commitments and principles of effective development co-operation, and they did just that. Key regional topics were eventually identified which established the basis for developing concrete actions to enhance the quality of country result frameworks and inclusive accountability. To this end, the current and future national, regional, inter-regional and global dialogues will focus on enhancing finance-planning linkages, promoting exchanges on development finance assessments, engaging with political leadership and developing partners, and applying inclusive accountability in the context of the Agenda 2030.

The pilot program is a good example of how the GPIs, such as the one on results and mutual accountability, can take the discussion from high-level forums to partner country platforms. Promoting new thinking and decision-making at the country level is how we can make progress on effective development co-operation and achieve global goals.